Yesterday was the Mattamy Homes Bike for Brain Health event here in Toronto.
I'd really like to thank everyone who donated to my ride. I raised $3,800. And the broader Multiplex Construction team raised over $14k. 100% of these donations will go directly to the Baycrest Foundation to fund work related to dementia, Alzheimer's, and other brain function related illnesses.
As advertised, I rode 75 km, which is an improvement from the last time I did a charity cycling event like this. My friend Akbar Ahmad reminded me that not only did I do 50 km on a single-speed bike and get a flat tire along the way, but I did it in boat shoes. Hmm. This time around, I dressed more appropriately. It was also 7 degrees when I left home at 630AM and so I bundled up.
A big kudos to my riding partner, Len Abelman of WZMH Architects, who rode downtown from Vaughan, did 75 km like it was no big deal (I drafted behind him), and then rode all the way back home. His total was 150 km for the day and my knee would not have supported such an endeavor.
Today was also a reminder of just how big the cycling community is in Toronto. Something like 10,000 people participated and it seemed like the majority of riders were fully geared up. It was great to see and it's always fun riding on the Gardiner Expressway and Don Valley Parkway without any cars.
At one point I was beside two guys chatting about how one of them is soon to become a father. The other guy asked if it was a boy or a girl and his response was, "it's a girl — and I really hope she likes cycling as much as her dad does."
Toronto is a cycling city.
Okay, so we know that Paris has transformed itself from a car city into a biking city. Between 2015-2020 the City doubled its number of bike lanes. Then in 2021, it announced that it wanted to become a "100% cycling city" and further add to its bike network. Today, it has one of the busiest bike routes in the world and more people cycle than drive. The Globe and Mail reported, here, that last year 11.2% of trips in Paris proper were made by bike, compared to only 4.3% by car. "You would not be wrong to call it a war on the car," Marcus Gee writes. However, the result was a "victory for the city."
At the same time, we know how people will respond to this data. Lots of people will read this article and immediately say, "yeah, but that's Paris, where the average highs and lows in January are 8 and 3 degrees, respectively. It simply won't work in Toronto where our January highs and lows average 0 and -7 degrees. We have snow to contend with; they don't." And of course, they wouldn't be entirely wrong in this argument. Cycling does tend to decline in the winter months in most cities. (Note: The months of April to November in Toronto are just as warm or warmer than Paris in the winter.)
But just for fun, let's look at Oulu, Finland which has been called the "winter cycling capital of the world." Oulu has a population of around 210,000 people, an extremely low population density of approximately 150 people per km2, and January temperatures that average between -7 and -15 degrees.
Yesterday morning I went cycling in High Park to try and condition myself for the Bike for Brain Health ride that I have coming up. The Park is such an incredible amenity and I love being so close to it. Of course, before I set out, I turned on my Apple Watch and Garmin computer so that I could track it all in Strava. This has become such a big part of cycling (and working out in general). We're all data obsessed. Everyone wants to track their route, their speed, their heart rate, and whatever else.
The result is that Strava collects mountains of data about the way people actively move about in cities — data on everything from cycling to backcountry skiing. Some of this aggregated/anonymized data is available to the public via their global heatmap, but much more of it is available to urban planners and active transportation groups around the world. In fact, this is part of what Strava does: they help city builders. Here are some urban case studies spanning Rio de Janeiro to Park City.
Looking at central Toronto, our heatmap looks like this:
Yesterday was the Mattamy Homes Bike for Brain Health event here in Toronto.
I'd really like to thank everyone who donated to my ride. I raised $3,800. And the broader Multiplex Construction team raised over $14k. 100% of these donations will go directly to the Baycrest Foundation to fund work related to dementia, Alzheimer's, and other brain function related illnesses.
As advertised, I rode 75 km, which is an improvement from the last time I did a charity cycling event like this. My friend Akbar Ahmad reminded me that not only did I do 50 km on a single-speed bike and get a flat tire along the way, but I did it in boat shoes. Hmm. This time around, I dressed more appropriately. It was also 7 degrees when I left home at 630AM and so I bundled up.
A big kudos to my riding partner, Len Abelman of WZMH Architects, who rode downtown from Vaughan, did 75 km like it was no big deal (I drafted behind him), and then rode all the way back home. His total was 150 km for the day and my knee would not have supported such an endeavor.
Today was also a reminder of just how big the cycling community is in Toronto. Something like 10,000 people participated and it seemed like the majority of riders were fully geared up. It was great to see and it's always fun riding on the Gardiner Expressway and Don Valley Parkway without any cars.
At one point I was beside two guys chatting about how one of them is soon to become a father. The other guy asked if it was a boy or a girl and his response was, "it's a girl — and I really hope she likes cycling as much as her dad does."
Toronto is a cycling city.
Okay, so we know that Paris has transformed itself from a car city into a biking city. Between 2015-2020 the City doubled its number of bike lanes. Then in 2021, it announced that it wanted to become a "100% cycling city" and further add to its bike network. Today, it has one of the busiest bike routes in the world and more people cycle than drive. The Globe and Mail reported, here, that last year 11.2% of trips in Paris proper were made by bike, compared to only 4.3% by car. "You would not be wrong to call it a war on the car," Marcus Gee writes. However, the result was a "victory for the city."
At the same time, we know how people will respond to this data. Lots of people will read this article and immediately say, "yeah, but that's Paris, where the average highs and lows in January are 8 and 3 degrees, respectively. It simply won't work in Toronto where our January highs and lows average 0 and -7 degrees. We have snow to contend with; they don't." And of course, they wouldn't be entirely wrong in this argument. Cycling does tend to decline in the winter months in most cities. (Note: The months of April to November in Toronto are just as warm or warmer than Paris in the winter.)
But just for fun, let's look at Oulu, Finland which has been called the "winter cycling capital of the world." Oulu has a population of around 210,000 people, an extremely low population density of approximately 150 people per km2, and January temperatures that average between -7 and -15 degrees.
Yesterday morning I went cycling in High Park to try and condition myself for the Bike for Brain Health ride that I have coming up. The Park is such an incredible amenity and I love being so close to it. Of course, before I set out, I turned on my Apple Watch and Garmin computer so that I could track it all in Strava. This has become such a big part of cycling (and working out in general). We're all data obsessed. Everyone wants to track their route, their speed, their heart rate, and whatever else.
The result is that Strava collects mountains of data about the way people actively move about in cities — data on everything from cycling to backcountry skiing. Some of this aggregated/anonymized data is available to the public via their global heatmap, but much more of it is available to urban planners and active transportation groups around the world. In fact, this is part of what Strava does: they help city builders. Here are some urban case studies spanning Rio de Janeiro to Park City.
Looking at central Toronto, our heatmap looks like this:
Here's a video comparing winter vs. summer cycling in Oulu.
I'll be the first to admit that I don't generally cycle in January and February. Partially because it's cold and partially because I don't want road salts all over my business. But the correct framing isn't that it's not possible in a city like Toronto; it's that I'm too soft. That, and we need to invest in the right infrastructure if we want more people to do it.
What is immediately noticeable is that cyclists will go where they feel safe. And that generally means streets with dedicated bike lanes. Looking at the above map, you can see that some of the most popular north-south routes are Shaw Street, Beverley Street/St. George Street, and Sherbourne Street. All of these streets have dedicated bike lanes. In the east-west direction, it's also clear that Bloor Street and Danforth Avenue form a hugely important crosstown artery. It is widely used from Etobicoke all the way to Scarborough.
At the same time, these maps start to show where there are broken links in the network. Annette Street and a portion of Dupont Street are, for example, widely used until you get east of the Junction Triangle. Then it falls off. This is unsurprising because it's a stretch of Dupont that isn't very friendly to cyclists. I know I certainly try and avoid it. Instead, we see that cyclists seem to be shifting northward to Davenport, which has a nice bike lane.
This is just one example, and I'm sure there's a lot of other takeaways that can be gleaned from Strava's data. So if you're a city builder and you aren't already leveraging this dataset, you may want to consider applying for a Metro Partnership. I'll be sure to continue doing my part and feeding it data about my laps in High Park and my stops for burgers and croissant sandwiches.
Here's a video comparing winter vs. summer cycling in Oulu.
I'll be the first to admit that I don't generally cycle in January and February. Partially because it's cold and partially because I don't want road salts all over my business. But the correct framing isn't that it's not possible in a city like Toronto; it's that I'm too soft. That, and we need to invest in the right infrastructure if we want more people to do it.
What is immediately noticeable is that cyclists will go where they feel safe. And that generally means streets with dedicated bike lanes. Looking at the above map, you can see that some of the most popular north-south routes are Shaw Street, Beverley Street/St. George Street, and Sherbourne Street. All of these streets have dedicated bike lanes. In the east-west direction, it's also clear that Bloor Street and Danforth Avenue form a hugely important crosstown artery. It is widely used from Etobicoke all the way to Scarborough.
At the same time, these maps start to show where there are broken links in the network. Annette Street and a portion of Dupont Street are, for example, widely used until you get east of the Junction Triangle. Then it falls off. This is unsurprising because it's a stretch of Dupont that isn't very friendly to cyclists. I know I certainly try and avoid it. Instead, we see that cyclists seem to be shifting northward to Davenport, which has a nice bike lane.
This is just one example, and I'm sure there's a lot of other takeaways that can be gleaned from Strava's data. So if you're a city builder and you aren't already leveraging this dataset, you may want to consider applying for a Metro Partnership. I'll be sure to continue doing my part and feeding it data about my laps in High Park and my stops for burgers and croissant sandwiches.
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